I had three related goals for 2009, to bring down my 5K, 10K, and HM times. Since I was new to 10K and HM those goals were guesses. I was happy I made them but they didn't mean as much as the 5K goals.

In 2008 I brought my 5K time from 27:51 to 25:11. These times were down from much worse the year before. So I set a goal of 24 minutes which I thought would be really tough to make, and it was. In 2009 I set times of:

25:31 (worse)

25:00 (yay - better!)

25:39 (mutter)

24:33 (woot!)

24:29

24:08 (missed it by *that* much!)

and with one more monthly race left in the year....

23:01 (woo hoo!)

Lots of easy miles and speed work (1,000 miles total) this year helped make a difference. Oh, and the Brooks Racer shoes probably helped a bit, too. I'll have to try another 5K with the normal shoes and see how that goes.

And I'm still really really impressed with those of you who run whole marathons at or better than my 5K pace.

1 out of 3 so far. Even if I stay at 1 for 3 this will have been the most successful and fun years of running I've ever had.

3,000 miles for the year -

Will be a miss. Probably will end up around 2700 miles, about the same as last year.

Sub 18:36 for 5K -

Made this in July with an 18:31.

Sub 38 for 10K -

One last try this coming Saturday (I give myself 50/50 odds on this one, PR 38:24; last race was a 37:04 on a short course - believe this would have been a sub-38 on a certified course so there is hope)

1 out of 3 so far. Even if I stay at 1 for 3 this will have been the most successful and fun years of running I've ever had.

3,000 miles for the year -

Will be a miss. Probably will end up around 2700 miles, about the same as last year.

Sub 18:36 for 5K -

Made this in July with an 18:31.

Sub 38 for 10K -

One last try this coming Saturday (I give myself 50/50 odds on this one, PR 38:24; last race was a 37:04 on a short course - believe this would have been a sub-38 on a certified course so there is hope)

Good one. Didn't you have marathon or half marathon goals? I guess maybe you hit your marathon goal in 2008 but that Cowtown half was pretty darn fast. Still I guess if it wasn't a specific goal it doesn't count!

Good luck on Saturday.

1 out of 4 for me. I had string of good pr's in the first part of the year - mile, 5k in 18:06, 10k in 38:27 and 15k in 59:20. However only the 15k hit a specific goal. Then, in the second half of the year, it all went pear shaped. Despite devoting pretty much the entire second half of the year to marathon training I didn't even come close to my sub-3 and wasn't recovered enough from the first marathon to do justice to the annual half-marathon this year. Then the second marathon was even worse.

I did hit 3,000 miles for the year though, but that wasn't really a goal. I guess the lesson here is to name more (or less) goals....

I didn't really set any goals in the beginning of the year other than to run more than the previous year, get better at running overall , and to enjoy it. I'm relatively new at this, so I'm happy with the year as a whole. I will soon reach the 3,000m mark, have had no injuries, knocked 15 mins off my marathon time,and started running some shorter races. Since I have no bench marks to beat when I was younger, I think that I should just continue to get faster and reach more PR's.

Good one. Didn't you have marathon or half marathon goals? I guess maybe you hit your marathon goal in 2008 but that Cowtown half was pretty darn fast. Still I guess if it wasn't a specific goal it doesn't count!

Good luck on Saturday.

1 out of 4 for me. I had string of good pr's in the first part of the year - mile, 5k in 18:06, 10k in 38:27 and 15k in 59:20. However only the 15k hit a specific goal. Then, in the second half of the year, it all went pear shaped. Despite devoting pretty much the entire second half of the year to marathon training I didn't even come close to my sub-3 and wasn't recovered enough from the first marathon to do justice to the annual half-marathon this year. Then the second marathon was even worse.

I did hit 3,000 miles for the year though, but that wasn't really a goal. I guess the lesson here is to name more (or less) goals....

John

Nope, no marathon goal for me this past year. My plan was to better my shorter distance times and hopefully run a good marathon off those. I did run sub-3 this year and PR'd at every distance I raced (cept for the marathon). But only had 3 actual, measureable goals. 1 fer 3 - not too bad for an old strikeout-prone 3rd baseman!

Seems like your year was pretty darned good as well. You weren't that far off sub-3 (your fitness level was there, just need to figure out how to keep down some fluids!). 3000 miles is impressive. Believe it or not that was one of my main goals - thought if I could do that the other two goals would just fall right into place. Injury at the beginning of the year hamsturng that goal right from the start. Good luck next year, John.

I set some time goals for 2009 (in my sig). I basically met each one of them (8k vs. 5 miles). My main goal was to go sub-3 in the marathon, which I did first in Boston and then again in Chicago. So was 2 for 2 in that category... 2009 was a very good running year, hopefully I can top that in 2010..

Today, I met my goal to get over 1400 miles in 2009. I managed to decrease my 5K time this year for a PR of 24:39. My fastest 5K previously was 26:50. I also managed to get below 2 hours on the half marathon distance twice, PR at the 50K distance, and run the farthest I've ever run (60K) two times this year. Overall, I'm very happy with 2009!

John, I met you at Strolling Jim this year. I wasn't running but crewing. If you weren't in TN, and I wasn't in OH... I'd run with ya! :-)